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« on: March 01, 2008, 11:30:43 pm »
The Ceramic Cat
Genre: Scary
Angela walked past the steam engines and straight to the flee markets. She was eight years old with a bounce in her step and was not interested in the real beauty in life, like the purr of a sports car as you turn the ignition, or the whistle of an old-steam engine tractor as you fire it up. Mom and dad tasked me with the job of playing babysitter on this family trip to the Tippecanoe steam engine show. I was fourteen, and naturally I had resented the idea at the very start. Why should I, a fun loving kid have to follow around a little girl that had a strange fascination for small, feline animals? No matter, once she’s done looking it’ll be my turn to look at the rows of old-engines that greeted me at every turn and corner of the place.
She breezed through the small-time markets, wasting no time, examining every store she came to, never staying at a single place for too long. I wasn’t complaining, because the quicker the better. Eventually she stopped at a store that specialized in paranormal bullcrap that any gullible little girl would get scared out of her wits over. “Angela, you know that this stuff just scares you” I warned as she took a look over a small crystal ball. “I know, bro, but that’s why it’s all so cool” she replied with unmistakable enthusiasm. She took her time at this store, examining everything purchasable with the eye of a master-merchant. She let out a little squeal as she saw a small ceramic cat. The cat was small, and was black with white stripes…or white with black stripes. She didn’t care, and she let out another small squeal as she saw the price tag that stated the cat was only $20.
“Why is it so cheap,” I questioned the shop keep, “surely something of this value must be worth more?”
“Are you complaining?” he replied
“No…”
“Well, it’s cheap because some people are turned off due to the weight of it. Small as a cat can be, heavy as a bulldog.”
I looked at the cat, then tried to pick it up. I cursed as I realized that it was too heavy and would need my father to help carry this thing back to the van. I told Angela to call him using my cellphone while I paid the shopkeep. Around ten minutes after the purchase, my dad and I were lugging the thing to the van. Jesus Christ, this is extremely heavy, I remember thinking at the time. We stayed at the show for another three or so hours, and my content little sister didn’t buy anything else or talk the whole time.
The ride home was not so quiet, however. She was bouncing off the walls in excitement, quizzing my dad about every detail of the ‘little kitty’ as she put it. My dad answered all her questions, never seeming annoyed, which was surprising to me because I was fed up with her after the first five minutes. When we got home, the little ceramic cat needed carrying inside. My dad and I lugged the cat upstairs and into Angela‘s room, my sister right on our tails. She was squealing when we finally set it down in the spot that she designated, and when we left she was still admiring the cat. My dad and I went downstairs and started to examine everything that everyone else had bought, then I helped my mother start on dinner. At dinner my dad explained that the next morning, before dawn, he was going to leave with my mother to go to the show again. It was going to be Saturday morning and the show started at around five. My sister decided to go with him, meaning that I would be alone early in the morning.
I went to bed especially early, exhausted from the day’s events. The sleep was immediate and dreamless, and I woke to the feeling of my bladder readying to betray me. I stumbled at out of bed through the night and looked out the window at the driveway. The family had already gone, and I was alone in the house. Once I finished up in the bathroom, I walked back to my bedroom and was stricken with an extreme and sudden fear. “What the hell?” I said to myself as I walked back to my room in a cold sweat and with goosebumps trailing my arms and legs. When I opened the door, I felt my heart jump out of my chest. I saw two little ceramic eyes that belonged to a little ceramic cat. I could swear that the eyes were freaking moving across the side of the room. I somehow summoned the courage to flip the light, and my breath escaped my lungs. The ceramic cat was in the room, staring at me, as if it had moved there to just greet me when I walked into my room. I sat in bed, and with the lights on, pulled the covers over me and slept. I woke to my dad shaking me, asking me what was going on. I explained to him that someone moved the cat into my room because I saw it there when I came back from the bathroom. He explained to me that the cat was still there in Angela’s room when they left for the show. My dad was as freaked out as I was, and told me that it was no big deal, someone moved it.
The next morning was the same ordeal, except my parents were home. They were genuinely scared by now, and Angela was scared beyond belief. Two nights after the first incident, we all woke up to the horror of her screaming her lungs out. I ran to her room, and saw that she was wide awake but still screaming. When she saw me, she started to sob and suddenly wrapped her little arms around my neck and buried her face in my shoulder, whispering incoherent words. I told her to calm down and my parents burst into the room, my dad yelling “What the hell is going on?”
“I think that she had a nightmare, dad.”
“Noooo! It wasn’t a nightmare!” She screamed at me. She was calming down a little, but still sobbing a bit. “I remember waking up and having to use the bathroom, but I saw the little kitty start to move. It moved across the room then sat on my chair, and just stared at me. I ran back to bed and started screaming, then you came in!”
I glanced at the chair, and the ceramic cat was sitting there. It was impossible, my parents were in a deep sleep and couldn’t have moved it, and the cat was so heavy that there was no way that she moved it. My parents told me to go back to bed and that they would deal with Angela. I slowly walked across the corridor, hearing a small thud walking behind me. I thought nothing of it, still tired, and I walked into my room and laid down. Through my half-sleep I heard my door open slightly and thought that my parents were coming in to see if I was asleep. I was expecting my mom to tell my dad I was asleep, but instead heard a faint “Meow”.
The blood drained from my face, my heart lumped into my throat, and I heard a screaming. My parents suddenly burst into the room with little Angela trailing behind, and I realized that I was the one screaming. My dad tripped over something, and started cursing. “What the he-…” his voice trailed off as he realized that he tripped over a small ceramic kitty.
That night, I helped my dad put the ceramic cat in the back of the van. We, as a family, rode in the van towards the Tippecanoe river. My dad and I stepped out at the Tippecanoe bridge, and we both grabbed sledgehammers that we brought from the house. My dad warned me to be careful and we smashed the ceramic figure into oblivion. I used a small broom and a small dustpan to sweep the pieces up and I threw them into the river.
As I write this, I am twenty-three years old with a fear of ceramic cats. My wife doesn’t believe me when I tell her about the story, but she does believe my unmistakable fear. My sister wouldn’t talk for the longest time, not until she was twelve. She had gotten over her fascination with cats the night we destroyed the ceramic hellcat. Now, she is in college, studying to become a therapist that would console children about their fears. My newly-born daughter, bless her heart, has a fascination with puppies, and a week ago I bought her a ceramic puppy. I am happy to report that she still loves the thing, and the thing has not tried to move in the night. Looking back, I can’t help but wonder if the shopkeep was telling the truth when he told me that the only turnoff to the ceramic cat was the weight of it.
I doubt it.